Call for Royal Commission of Inquiry into MRR2 scandal –
Samy Vellu’s final folly with Malaysians again made the suckers

In May last year, I said that the old saying “once is accident,
twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action” could appropriately be
modified to “once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is systemic
government collapse” in reference to the spate of government mishaps
under the Abdullah premiership.

I was referring to the spate of embarrassing defects in new government
offices in a matter of weeks, viz:

• the landslide in Putrajaya (Precinct 9) only inches away
from three 15-storey government apartments, damaging 25 cars and
evacuating more than 1,500 people from Blocks A, B and C in Phase 11
of the government housing complex on March 22, 2007;

• the closure of the Immigration Department headquarters in
Putrajaya after water flooded the seven-floor building following a
failure in plumbing, turning away and evacuating more than 1,000
people on April 11, 2007;

• the collapse of a ceiling due to a leaky sprinkler system at the
Entrepreneur and Co-operative Development Ministry in Putrajaya on
April 28, 2007; and

• the ceiling collapse in a secretary’s room at the world’s largest
court complex at the new Jalan Duta court complex in Kuala Lumpur on
April 30, 2007.

This tag “once is accident, twice is coincidence, thrice is
systemic government collapse” can again be invoked over the latest
government scandal – the third closure with the reappearance of cracks
on the Middle Ring Road (MRR) 2 in Kepong, less than two years after an
atrociously exorbitant RM70 million repair of the RM238 million project.

When the MRR2 was partially closed on Sunday after two motorists cheated
death when their cars were hit by debris when carbon fibre straps on one
of the pillars gave way, the Works Minister, Datuk Mohd Zin Mohamad made
two statements:

• “We will not compromise on the safety of motorists
although my officers have reported that the structure is safe”; and

• “The government will not bear any cost because the repair is still
under warranty until the end of the year”.
Both statements are bunkum and have little credibility, which were
the trademark of the former Works Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu,
whom Mohd Zinn should not be emulating.

The latest MRR2 Scandal is Samy Vellu’s latest folly with
Malaysians again made the suckers.

The MRR2 has become a hydra-headed scandal for multiple reasons,
including:

(1) Closed down the first time in August 2004 and second
time in February 2006 because of flyover cracks within two years of
its original completion, when it should be able to meet
international standards and last for 100 years.

In February 2006, Samy Vellu boasted that the MRR2 viaduct in Kepong
after repair “could be used for 95 more years because they were
normally built to last 100 years”!

In August 2006, when MRR2 was re-opened to light traffic, Samy Vellu
further boasted that “Motorists are assured of their safety” as the
standard of safety set for the road was higher than the 1.5 British
Standard benchmark, i.e. 1.7.

All these boasts have been punctured by another MRR2 mishap and
partial closure for three weeks on Sunday.

(2) Samy Vellu had repeatedly declared as Works Minister for 42
months from August 2004 to March 2008 that MRR2 contractor Bumi
Highway would have to pay for the full repair cost, which is another
scandal of good governance.

This is because of the unexplained and unaccounted
four-fold cost overrun in the MRR2 repair bill, from the originally
estimated RM18 million to the final bill of RM70 million.

Although theoretically Mohd Zin is right that the new
repair bill will have to be borne by Bumi Highway, this is a
meaningless statement as Bumi Highway has not spent a single sen for
the earlier RM70 million repair which had been fully borne by the
government and taxpayers as “advance payment” for the contractor!

This is where Malaysian taxpayers have been made suckers
again and again by empty and meaningless Ministerial statements and
assurances.

(3) Revelation that the solution adopted by the Works
Ministry to repair the original MRR2 cracks went against the expert
recommendation of Halcrow Consulting Ltd, advising against the use
of pre-stressed carbon fibre to strengthen the pillar heads because
of its limited ductility (capacity to deform before fracture). (The
Sun)
Halcrow was paid RM8 million for its consultancy report which went
down the drain when it was rejected by the Public Works Department.

(4) The personal and direct intervention of the Prime
Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to resolve the intense
turf war between the then Works Minister, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu
and the PWD, requiring the covening of a special meeting on a Friday
on 3rd February 2006, which was attended by among others the second
Finance Minister, Tan Sri Nor Mohamad Yakcob and the then Chief
Secretary Tan Sri Samsudin Osman.

Samy Vellu won the battle against the PWD at the Feb. 3
meeting but eventually lost the war. Although Samy Vellu announced
after the meeting that the MRR2 repair work would be supervised by
the British-based consultants Halcrow, maintaining that the costs
would be RM18 million, the turf war was finally won by the PWD at a
Cabinet meeting two weeks later which upheld the PWD’s
recommendation in awarding the repair work to German consulting firm
Leonhardt Andra and Partners (LAP) at a cost of RM40 million, which
later mushroomed mysteriously to RM70 million!

(5) Ministerial responsibility by the Prime Minister and
all Cabinet Ministers for the new MRR2 cracks scandal, as the
Cabinet must set an example of accountability to the entire public
service and the nation for its decision on the repairs.

(6) The failure by the government officials, whether from the
Finance Ministry or the Public Works Department to give proper and
truthful account for the MRR2 scandal to the Public Accounts
Committee of the previous Parliament, to the extent that some
officials had committed parliamentary contempt in misleading the
Public Accounts Committee.

Samy Vellu said yesterday that he has no comment to make on the
second MRR2 scandal and that he would only answer questions from a
government-appointed panel of inquiry on the matter.

Samy Vellu owes the Malaysian taxpayers a full and truthful accounting
for his stewardship of the Works Ministry, as he had presided over many
follies and scandals which have ended up with the Malaysian taxpayers as
the suckers in footing the final bills.

For this reason, I call for the establishment of a Royal Commission of
Inquiry into the MRR2 scandal, both the first and second, to let their
full sordid tale to be told and accounted to Malaysian taxpayers.